"Whoever heard any talk about painting that made sense?" asks a character in ["White Figure, White Ground"]. One might answer, "Hugh Hood, the author of this novel." This rising young Canadian writer has here tackled a notoriously difficult subject and brought it off. Not with any frothing at the eyeballs over the agony and the ecstasy of it all, and without preciosity (well, not much), but with the simple leverage of insight…. [By] subtle cross-illumination among its parts, the author casts fresh and searching light not only on the creative process itself but on the father-son relationship, the dynamics of marriage, the barrens of un-fulfillment and the whole ambiguous issue of roots and growth.

Mr. Hood saws the air a bit in the big mandatory sex scene, and he has a few stylistic tics (e.g., the stuttering adjective). But his excesses are usually those of vitality. He...